Archive for the ‘Archaeology’ Category
Saturday, January 14th, 2012
Following recent trimming of the roadside hedges, scrub and trees, the old cross which is believed to date back to medieval times, is quite prominent on the roadside, on the left as you progress from Tadcaster on Toulston Lane towards Bramham. It really is great to see something like this, without too much in the way of vandalism afflicting it, just some fairly light scratchings from some people keen to leave their initials for no-one to wonder who they were!
The cross is listed and the following is the listing reference:
Tags: bramham, magnesium limestone, medieval cross, oglethorpe
Posted in Archaeology, Local Views | No Comments »
Wednesday, August 24th, 2011
A couple of years back, summer 2008 to be more precise, I constructed a virtual roof truss of the timber structure which once covered the Drawing Room Block at Parlington Hall, from the early part of the nineteenth century up until around the mid 1950′s. Below is a view of the sketch. Clicking on the picture will take you to the relevant section on the Parlington History Site, in a new window.
Tags: Antigua, King post, restoration St Johns, Roof Truss, Sketchup
Posted in Archaeology, Country Houses, The Hall | No Comments »
Sunday, October 17th, 2010
I wrote about a water colour painting of Parlington Hall which had been found in a skip, it features in an earlier post,
http://www.parlington.info/2009/09/04/country-life-magazine/
The picture above is of the painting; for over a year I have carefully steered a path towards having the picture recovered and returned to its rightful home, Lotherton Hall, where it will be displayed for the interest of the general public.
Tags: Country Life magazine, Parlington Hall, Philip Norman artist, watercolour
Posted in Archaeology, Art, Country Houses, The Hall | No Comments »
Thursday, September 30th, 2010
My excavations that re-discovered the cellar in the summer of 2005 as documented here on the Parlington History site are being consigned to history AGAIN! Sadly, the location is being filled with cheap rubble and demolition waste, not even clean stone is being used. The stairway to the cellar built almost certainly in the 1730′s at the behest of Sir Edward Gascoigne, when he constructed the central block that would endure as Parlington’s main elevation for over 250 years, is being filled by Messrs Moron & Co! That’s how annoyed I am. I don’t care who owns the place, playing fast and loose with our history and heritage is frankly truly barbaric. Here is the evidence:
Tags: 1730's, artefacts, Excavations, Lost cellar, Shame, Sir Edward Gascoigne
Posted in Archaeology, Excavations, Gascoignes, Parlington Estate, The Hall | No Comments »
Monday, June 7th, 2010
For those interested in all things historical, I’ve added a short article about the Brewster Stereo Photo Viewer to the new BBC “A History of the World” web site which acompanies the rather good Radio Four series, “A History of the World in a 100 Objects”.
The site and in particular my article about the viewer is here: Brewster 3D Viewer
The article on my on the main Parlington History site is here:
Artefacts Section
The idea is a naked attempt to push more visitors to the History site, as people keep telling me that the profile of the site is too low!
Permanent link to this post (105 words, 1 image, estimated 25 secs reading time)
Tags: BBC, History of the World, nineteenth century photography, Stereo Photos
Posted in Archaeology, Events, Photography | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, May 25th, 2010
This coming Friday, 28th May, I will be setting up a new exhibit at Crossgates Heritage Centre of my Parlington artefacts, for the East Leeds History and Archaeology Society. The picture below is a view of the Centre at Crossgates Library, and I presume, my items will be placed in one of the glass cabinets. Whilst this is somewhat smaller than the four cabinets on display at Lotherton Hall, I’m sure I can put enough into it to make it a worthwhile exhibit.
Tags: artefacts, Crossgates Library, East Leeds History and Archaeology Society
Posted in Archaeology, Events, Exhibitions, The Hall | No Comments »
Thursday, May 20th, 2010
Having not written any articles recently, I felt I should add a short note about my exhibition of Parlington artefacts that have been on display at Lotherton Hall these last six months and more. Today the items have been taken down and packed into boxes, to return to Parlington, so ends my first mini-exhibition, which by all accounts was well received. Perhaps the best item on display was the collection of stereo photo cards from the 1860′s and the “Brewster” mahogany stereo viewer (shown above). I think it reasonable to believe that the photographs were taken by one of Gascoigne family, or a close friend and found their way via the then butler John Shelton to his descendants and finally back to Parlington! The details of the extrordinary discovery is recounted on the Parlington history site here.
Permanent link to this post (139 words, 1 image, estimated 33 secs reading time)
Tags: artefacts, Brewster Viewer, exhibition, nineteenth century photography, Stereo Photos
Posted in Archaeology, The Hall | No Comments »
Friday, November 27th, 2009
Swaffham Cemetery
This may seem an odd post title, but during my visit to London last weekend, whilst on route to the V & A Museum in South Kensington, I noticed a sign in the tube network which gave dates of various luminaries from the past and their birth places. There was the name of Howard Carter [1874-1939] the Egyptologist, famous for discovering the tomb of Tutankhamun on the 26th of November 1922. His birthplace was stated as Swaffham, and having visited the place recently, I was unaware of this fact. [This link is to an earlier post about a visit to Swaffham] This reminded me of my own mini discovery a couple of years ago whilst cutting the grass, my foot slipped down a rabbit hole and I grated my ankle on a hard object which turned out to be the remains of a brick wall.
Tags: Archaeology, Excavations, Howard Carter, Lost cellar, Tutankhamun
Posted in Archaeology, Excavations, The Hall | No Comments »
Thursday, October 1st, 2009
The weather was too good to miss the opportunity after work, so I continued some excavations around the location of the fountain, the centre piece of the lawn in the nineteenth century. Of course I had to find the location first, but recent geophys scans gave some insights so off I went!
Tags: gold leaf, Porcelain Tureen Lid. Figurine. Cherub
Posted in Archaeology, Gardens, The Hall | No Comments »
Monday, August 24th, 2009
I was recently introduced to a local archaeologist who lives in Aberford and we have since discussed some of my findings at Parlington, on Sunday this last weekend I showed her some pieces of the fragments of hand painted lime plaster discovered in the demolition rubble. They ares quite possibly seventeenth or early eighteenth century. I had already shown the fragments to the curator at Lotherton Hall and there is an article on the Parlington history site here. However she was so impressed that we got stuck in and dug out some more, luckily the weather was excellent throughout most of the day, so we were able to find not only quite a number of additional pieces, but also some large chunks of plaster coving the same pattern as found in that location earlier and detailed here on the history site.
Tags: Hand painted plaster, seventeenth century
Posted in Archaeology, Excavations, The Hall | No Comments »